Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 171: Marvel/Atlas Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 156

April-June 1958

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Strange Tales #62 (April)

Cover by Joe Maneely

"The Girl Who Walked Thru Stone!" (a: Ruben Moreira) ★

"The Man Nobody Knew!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★

"The Invaders!" (a: Werner Roth) ★★1/2

"Filled With Hate" (a: Angelo Torres) ★★

"It Happened That Night" (a: Herb Familton) ★

"Alone in the Night!" (a: George Roussos) ★★

Rollery is just another mine-digging grunt when he stumbles upon Lialda, "The Girl Who Walked Thru Stone!" One day, deep in the mines, the fetching beauty materializes from a thick slab of stone and begs Rollery to halt the digging of the mine. The excavation, the beauty claims, is destroying her home world of Shala. The inhabitants are readying a journey to what will become Shala II, deep beneath Australia, but they need a few months to (ostensibly) dig their way further underground (nearly missing the core, I hope); could Rollery throw up a bit of confusion in order to stop the dig? Lialda promises she'll come back for him.

Deeply in love with the magical princess, Rollery blows up the mine and is arrested for his crime. Sitting in a jail for three long years, Rollery has pretty much given up on the Stone Goddess when a "mole" bursts through his cell floor and Lialda pops out with two tickets to paradise. The couple head down into the abyss, with Rollery clearly not wondering how the hell he's going to breathe underground. Pure, mindless junk with adequate art that doesn't force the 8-year-old reader to think about details (like how Lialda knew exactly where Rollery's cell was located), a/k/a Atlas post-code.

The circulation for the Wickston Star-Times increases one thousand fold when its obit editor, Tom Thurty, begins running news items before they happen. Naturally, mobsters want a piece of Thurty and, in the end, they get their just desserts. The reveal for "The Man Nobody Knew!" is from out of the blue (seems Thurty was a ghost the entire time!), but I've learnt that I'll even read through a Carl Wessler script like this if it's adorned with Joe Maneely's pencils.

"The Invaders!" from an undersea kingdom arrive on the surface world to map out their attack but find that the country dwellers are tougher than they seem. A three-page Jack Oleck script with a decent reveal and some fine Werner Roth graphics. More great art is on hand in "Filled with Hate," the story of a caretaker in a Budapest zoo who suspects one of the new attractions is an alien force biding its time to conquer the world. The script is unfocused and ends on an all too predictable note but, oh, those Frazetta/Williamson-esque panels by Orlando!

In "It Happened That Night," George Bowers insults a fakir while the man is performing in the street and suffers the magic man's wrath. George is given a pair of seemingly harmless glasses but he can see into the future... including his own fate. On page one, I saw into the future. Last up is "Alone in the Night!," wherein con man Fred Standish is wandering the docks looking for easy prey. He finds it in Nora Nichols, who owns a nice yacht moored at the pier. He tells her how gorgeous she is and he's not at all interested in her millions. She buys it... or does she? The reveal (that Nora is also a thief who was cursed to travel in this yacht until she could lure someone in to take her place) is a variant we've seen several times before, be it the adventurer and the temple of gold or the genie in the bottle, but the final panels of George screaming from the bowels of the seabound yacht are fairly chilling.-Peter

World of Fantasy #11 (April)

Cover by Bill Everett (?) & Joe Maneely

"Prisoner of the Fantastic Fog" (a: Angelo Torres) ★★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #7)

"Nightmare at Midnight" (a: Jim Mooney) ★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #7)

"The Sinister Stone" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★1/2

(r: Vault of Evil #11)

"He Never Reached the Ground!" (a: Alfonso Greene) ★

(r: Crypt of Shadows #19)

"He's Coming to Get Me!" (a: Ted Galindo) ★

(r: Giant-Size Werewolf #5)

"The Mad Scientist!" (a: Ross Andru & Jack Abel) ★1/2

(r: Frankenstein #11)

Big Sam Morgan is the most powerful rackets man in the state, but his big-brain (sucker) brother, Jerry, keeps toiling away in his lab instead of working for Sammy. Jerry's working on a vapor that will shrink anything it comes in contact with. While Sammy is arguing with his little brother, the phone rings and one of the mobster's henchmen gives him the news that the Feds are closing in.

In a panic, Sam races out the door and nearly into the arms of a beat cop. As if fortune were smiling down upon him, Sam is suddenly surrounded by a thick mist. When the mist clears, he's about two inches tall and an alley cat is eyeing him as a toy. Sam swears he'll go straight if the powers that be will only return him to normal size. Just like that, Sam is his old self again and turning himself in to the beat cop. Meanwhile, his brother sighs and admits his formula will probably never work.

The (uncredited) writer of "Prisoner of the Fantastic Fog" was obviously influenced by the recently-released The Incredible Shrinking Man, which also uses sinister mist and a big cat. The difference (well, there are a lot of differences, quality-wise) is that the CCA demands a semi-happy ending, so Sam Morgan lives to see another day (albeit as a jailbird), whereas the film's Scott Carey keeps shrinking into nothingness. A fun bit of trivia is provided by the GCD: brilliant but fashion-blind junior scientist Jerry Morgan would later resurface as a member of "the Headmen" in Defenders #21 (March 1975).

A dream searches the city's bedrooms, looking for just the right person to inhabit. "Nightmare at Midnight" is a waste of four pages in both script and art, with the final panel reveal being the clumsiest twist we've seen... well, at least this month, anyway. In the three-page "The Sinister Stone," an adventurer steals a priceless ruby from a statue belonging to a primitive Incan tribe and suffers the vengeance of its owner, the Rain God. Faced with either drowning or returning to the tribe for punishment, the man picks the only way to go in the Post-Code Atlas Universe and hopes the Incans will be "merciful." Well, of course they'll be merciful; nobody dies in these things anymore so danger is a long-gone element.

Wait, did I say "Nightmare at Midnight" contained the clumsiest twist of the month? Well, let me just correct myself here and state outright that "He Never Reached the Ground!" is even more inane. Window washer Wally Ober loses his footing and takes a tumble thirty-five floors to the street... or rather, he would have hit the ground if his grandfather had not discovered the land of the magical Lamas and therefore earned a sort of security force to save his descendants, should they be in peril. Luckily, Wally disappears about two feet from the ground and reappears in the land of the Lamas, where he vows to stay for the rest of his days. Seemingly stitched together from various parts of discarded scripts, "He Never..." is, literally, three pages of panels depicting Wally falling past the windows of each floor and a final page of exposition. Wally never reaches the ground but Atlas is nearing the bottom of the barrel.

It gets no better with "He's Coming to Get Me!," where a very nervous Peter Wilcox awaits the arrival of his brother, who he cheated out of a very large fortune. But when Ralph finally shows up, it's to take Peter to a spaceship where they'll fly to another planet rich with minerals. Peter has been so out of it, cowering in the shadows of his home for so long he didn't know that space travel had become as common as riding a bus. This was Ted Galindo's 14th and final Atlas appearance and I have to say I won't miss his ugly, scratchy doodlings.

A man bearing a comatose young boy appears in the laboratory of really smart genius scientist, Dr. Mark Ferris. The stranger tells the Doc that the boy has contracted a strange disease and must be put into Ferris's experimental cryo-chamber. The boy must be frozen for a while until a cure can be found for the disease and Mark's research may have already drummed up the foundation for that cure... at least that's what I think all the scientific mumbo-jumbo boils down to. To make a really long story short (SPOILER ALERT!! but if you can't guess the holy smokes surprise from the first page, you're pretty thick), the visitor is Mark from the near future, where they've perfected time travel, and the kid is Mark's future son. The trip back to his younger self triggered Future-Mark's memory and now he can cure his son. Or something like that. How should I know? This is the kind of thing Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein would do just about every other month in Weird Science and Fantasy and the worst variation those boys cooked up is much better than this microwaved pap. At least the art's decent.-Peter

Strange Tales #63 (June)

Cover by Bill Everett

"He Never Came Out!" (a: Alfonso Greene) ★

"Uncork It... If You Dare!" (a: Howard O'Donnell) ★★

"The Drowning Man!" (a: Christopher Rule) ★

"Flight Number Thirteen!" (a: Ruben Moreira) ★1/2

"The Melting Pot" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

"Too Good to Be True!" (a: Don Perlin) ★

A shady local character named Joe Morse admires the statutes in Cartel's wax museum but doesn't believe Cartel's story about creating them from real criminals by means of the head of Medusa. Joe's pal Atkins wants nothing to do with Joe's plan to rob the wax museum and, after Morse headed in to do the deed, "He Never Came Out!" Cartel changes the number on the sign outside from 36 to "37 Lifelike Figures" and Atkins has an idea of where Joe ended up.

Alfonso Greene's art is about on par with this poorly written opener. First of all, if Cartel uses the head of Medusa to turn baddies to stone, why are they in a wax museum? Does he cover the stone statutes with wax? And how hard up must Joe be to want to rob a place that charges 25 cents to get in?

It's 1962 and Harold Simpson is a sad sack whose wife complains that he should ask the boss for a raise. He inherits a bottle of a strange substance that his Uncle Abner picked up in India and Harold reads that, if he uncorks the vessel, it will release a gas that can reverse a man's personality. Planning to make himself into an assertive, successful fellow, Harold walks by the United Nations building and hears world leaders threatening each other. He uncorks the bottle and the diplomats become madmen, physically attacking their fellows. Harold chooses the better part of valor and runs into the building, where he smashes the bottle on the floor. The diplomats revert to their original personalities, stop arguing, and avert war. No one knows that Harold saved the world!

I know it's corny, but I kind of liked "Uncork It...If You Dare!" I don't know why Carl Wessler (the GCD thinks he wrote it) set it five years in the future, but it's an accurate picture of the way things would be. I expected Harold to become a jerk and learn his lesson, but I never guessed he'd use the gas on the men at the U.N. The end, where they work out their differences, is predictable, but at least the parts leading up to it were unexpected.

After giving a man a free lunch at the Beachtime Diner, the man gives Joe Fulsom a coin that appears to come from Atlantis. Joe follows the man to the beach and sees him walk into the water. Diving in to save what he thinks is "The Drowning Man!," Joe witnesses guards from the lost city banishing murderers to live above the water. Joe blacks out and awakens in a hospital room in Atlantis, where he is happy to hear that the telepathic inhabitants determined that he is a good man and may stay in the perfect world.

That's an awful lot to pack into three poorly drawn pages. Christopher Rule's art looks like something we'd see in the back of a 1940s comic and doesn't do the writer any favors.

The pilots of "Flight Number Thirteen!" from Bulgaria take off with a plane full of passengers but are shocked and dismayed to see that all of the passengers are sitting in their seats, completely still, with sad looks on their faces. Franz and Ivan, the pilots, don't really care--they're only concerned with letting the passengers off in a forest and getting away with the cash from last night's bank robbery. The plane suddenly goes out of control, diving to avoid a storm and landing on its own power. When it lands, the passengers exit, suddenly cheerful to no longer be stranded in a parallel world. The pilots think they can hide out here and enjoy their wealth, but they will soon go into a trance and feel only sadness, as the passengers did. It's too bad Ruben Moreira's artwork is wasted on such junk. This story is utterly pointless.

A prisoner named Sam Barlow invents "The Melting Pot," a gizmo that melts all the steel in the area when it's turned on. He uses it to escape from the slammer and, once he's safely ensconced in a hideout, Sam uses the pot to steal a ton of gold bars. Satisfied with his haul, he bends the machine's oscillating lever out of shape so that it will no longer affect steel. Unfortunately, now it melts gold, and soon Sam is swimming in liquid gold, begging the cops to rescue him. I don't know how John Forte managed to do it, but the art on this one isn't half bad, even though the story is ridiculous. I read the Wikipedia page on Atlas Comics (though we're now into the Independent Comics period and Atlas is no more) and learned about the supposed discovery of scads of bad comic pages in a closet. This led to most of the artists being let go. I have to wonder if the comics we're reading now feature some of that found bad work.

The last story in this issue is called "Too Good to Be True!" The best thing about it is that it's only four pages long. A kid named Danny is jealous of the other boys, whose aunts and uncles give them swell gifts, so he invents an Uncle George. To his surprise, Uncle George appears and begins to shower the lad with gifts. His friends grow jealous and start to suggest that Uncle George is made up. Eventually, Danny begins to wonder if his uncle is a thief and brings a cop to his trailer. Uncle George then fades away, telling Danny that he was the product of his faith. Now that Danny can accept reality he has taken the first step toward manhood. When I saw that Don Perlin drew this one, I suspected we were in for trouble and I was right. His art is not much different than it would be years later on Werewolf By Night. That's not a compliment.-Jack

World of Fantasy #12 (June)

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Face in the Glass!" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

(r: Frankenstein #10)

"The Next World" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★

(r: Giant-Size Chillers #2)

"Bedlam in Barnesville" (a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2

"Hallucination" (a: Alfonso Greene) ★★

"The Enemy!"(a: Manny Stallman) ★

"Hiding Place!" (a: Al Eadah) ★

Running from the cops after robbing a jewelry store, Boris Hann hides out at the cottage of Johan, the mirror maker. When Johnan sounds the alarm, Boris tackles him, leading the roly poly man to promise Boris a magic mirror that will change his appearance to that of anyone he wishes when he looks at "The Face in the Glass!" Suddenly young and handsome, Boris (being an Atlas villain) vows to use his newfound tool to help him commit more robberies. He blows open the safe in a mansion, grabs the jewels, and is spotted by the caretaker. Boris heads back to town and his magic mirror, knocking an old man to the ground in his haste. He reaches his room, looks in the mirror, and makes a wish. The cops burst in and find Boris, lying dead on the floor and gazing into the mirror. He wished to change his face into that of the old man he knocked down, unaware that the old man suffered a fatal heart attack--and the same thing happened to Boris.

Some Atlas stories elicit yawns. Some elicit eye rolls. Some elicit groans. This one elicited a "huh?" When Johan gives Hans the magic mirror, he says it will change his appearance. There is nothing about suffering the fate of the person whose appearance he takes on. I guess that's the trick and we're supposed to think Johan held back that bit of information on purpose? The ending doesn't really work and Forte's half-page first panel is awful.

Out in the desert, a mirage looks like a city and a scientist named Benson has invented a machine to pull living things out of the mirage and into our world. He demonstrates by pulling a bird into the desert and now wants to take it one step further by summoning a man. His colleagues try to stop him, but that night he goes forward with his experiment and finds himself in "The Next World," where everyone thinks the desert is just a mirage. Richard Doxsee should be commended for taking this disaster of a script and giving it visual life. I had to go back and forth and read it a few times to make any sense of it.

When a string of home robberies create "Bedlam in Barnesville," the neighbors blame eccentric old coot Hank Brody. Nick Gabel leads a posse of torch-bearing citizens to Hank's house and the old man runs off. In the days that follow, entire houses begin to vanish! The stolen goods are found in the space that used to be occupied by Nick's house and it turns out that Hank had been feeding termites, which made short work of all the houses. Jim Mooney can always be counted on for solid, if uninspired, artwork, but this is yet another story that makes absolutely no sense. At the start, the townsfolk think Brody is nuts because he appears to be spreading birdseed and then shoos the birds away with a rolled up newspaper. At the end, it turns out that he was feeding termites and keeping the birds away. But why? And what termites could devour house after house overnight? Don't fantasy stories require some internal logic?

Cooper insists that something is getting into his mind, but Dr. Morse insists it's just a "Hallucination." Eventually, Cooper insists that his mind is being searched by aliens who are investigating the possibility of invasion. The doctors thinks he's nuts, but one night an alien force exits Cooper's mind and heads back to outer space to report that humans are completely irrational and Earth is worthless to invade. The doctors agree that Cooper thinks he's the only one who can save humanity--no wonder he's been in the State Hospital for the Insane for years!

Now that's an ending I did not see coming. What a relief! This story is in the vein of others we've read, such as the one where aliens take over a dog and think it's a representative of the highest form of life on Earth (which it actually may be). Still, any glimmer of originality or entertainment is welcome at this point.

A bolt of lightning zaps a dinosaur egg that had been lying in a cave for a very long time. A T-Rex hatches and grows to its full size. It encounters "The Enemy," another great big dino that defeats it in battle, and it limps back to the cave from whence it came. On a movie set, two workmen wonder where the other dino came from that just battled their robot dino.

This one definitely elicited a groan and Manny Stallman's dinosaurs are nothing special.

Richard has invented a machine that he calls an electronic receiver. It can look into the past, see what someone was doing, and retrieve things thought lost from their "Hiding Place!" His no good gambler cousin Herb sees dollar signs and uses the machine to find out where a fortune was hidden a decade before. Herb rounds up some other gamblers and they all head to the Brazilian jungle to get the loot, but Richard discovers that the machine has been used. He finds Herb with the aid of the machine, retrieves the map, and destroys it and the receiver, leaving Herb in the jungle with three angry crooks. If the rest of this issue (save "Hallucination") weren't so bad, this story would be the worst, but it benefits from the bad company. Art and writing are well below average.-Jack

Next Week...
Blink and You'll Miss the 
Atlas Career of Richard Bassford

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 163: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 148

May 1957 Part III

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Mystic #59

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Sleep-Walker!" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★1/2

"Jigsaw" (a: Mort Meskin & George Roussos) ★★

"Something Waits on the Mountain!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★

"What Happened to Hassen?" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★★

"The Fatal Words!" (a: Howard O'Donnell) ★★1/2

"Stormy Night!" (a: Sam Kweskin) ★

(r: Beware #7)

Greedy hypnotist Bruno Alban puts Jeffry Hamilton under a trance and learns that, in a previous life, Jeffry was a pirate who stole millions in gold and stashed it away in a safe spot. Leaving his subject under a trance, Albans has the pirate speak and lead him to the treasure. Sure enough, Albans finds the buried chest but isn't paying attention to the pirate's ramblings and misses the part about the booby trap he rigged hundreds of years before. Ka-Boom! Hey, "The Sleep-Walker!" is nothing new, obviously inspired by the Bridey Murphy fad, but it's a lot of fun and I love Doxsee's simple but effective penciling evocative of Reed Crandall. And, hey, someone actually dies in this strip!

The stinkin' Commies send some agents over to steal some of our top-secret materials. In order to break into the base holding said materials, one of the agents uses a gizmo to make him invisible. Thank goodness the Commies are pretty stupid cuz the gizmo doesn't benefit from the cloak of invisibility. In the end, the Good Guys (US) knew what the Reds were up to and laid a booby trap reminiscent of those used by pirates in the first strip this issue. "Jigsaw" would have been a lot more clever without the final three panels of exposition but the Meskin/Roussos art is pretty good.

Somewhere near San Rico lies a deadly patch of air where jets have been slamming into impenetrable barriers and crashing. Also, hey, what about the cattle that seem to be disappearing? The Air Force sends two of its crack pilots, Captains Luro and Bozza, to investigate. As they fly their jets near the danger zone, they are startled and amazed by the sight of two huge vultures flying right at them! The pilots follow the birds back to their aerie, where their master, Dr. Carlos Vega, awaits.

Once Luro and Bazzo set their jets down and approach, Vega explains that he's raised the giant birds, known as "Awks," from eggs and plans to use them to become dictator of San Rico. The boys hoof it to their planes, fire them up, and return to blast the buzzards (and their master) from the sky. The world lets out a collective sigh. How can you not love a dopey strip such as "Something Waits on the Mountain!" which, for goodness sakes, was released a couple months before the premiere of The Giant Claw? Both projects have a serious tone to them that belies the fact that neither should be taken seriously. The Krigstein art is icing on the cake; I'll bet Bernie was laughing the entire time he was at his drawing board.

Abdullah Hassen rules over Khana with an iron fist, having taken control and forced out the previous rulers, the Mafas. Hassen's chief hobby is arresting and imprisoning anyone he doesn't like. One night, a stranger breaks into the palace wine cellar and is seized by the guards. When the intruder is brought before Hassen, the dictator realizes the man is one of the Mafas; Ras Mafa begs the evil lord to allow him to take just the one bottle of wine. Hassen refuses and opens the bottle to taste the vintage wine. Big mistake. "What Happened to Hassen?" has a decent twist but its cartoony graphics are off-putting at times.

"The Fatal Words!" is a humorous three-pager about an old miser who discovers his dog can talk and attempts to make millions exploiting Rover. The dog, not happy with the proceedings, clams up. It's only three pages but it got a few chuckles out of me and the final panel is a keeper. On a "Stormy Night!," the SS Belle Lune is heading right into the biggest hurricane of all time when, suddenly, the engines stop. The men in the engine room have been turned to stone. What the heck happened? Well, the Captain soon discovers his ship has been boarded by the "Conquerors," aliens from a distant planet who are here to scout for an impending invasion. Long story short, Earth is saved by the hurricane, which the little space buggers never counted on. The art and story are both microwaved. Let's pretend this better-than-average issue went out on the high note of "The Fatal Words!," shall we?-Peter

Strange Tales #58

Cover by Bill Everett

"He Floats Through the Air" 

(a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo) ★★

"Menace from the Nether World!" (a: Gene Colan) ★★

"The Night of October Third!" (a: Dave Berg) ★

"Man Lost" (a: Pete Morisi) ★

"No Place on Earth!" (a: John Giunta) ★★

"The Secret of the Black Tube" (a: Matt Baker) ★★

Brilliant, a genius, and really smart to boot, Earl Ferrol has invented a way for man to fly without the restraint of a jet. He simply jumps out a window and glides. For one nanosecond, Earl gives pause and considers what this breakthrough could mean for modern man... then he steals the jewels from a nearby apartment. Struck by money-lust, Earl goes on a whirlwind theft flight before the cops finally nab him in an ironic twist of fate. Believe me, the Williamson/ Mayo art is the only spark to this groaner. Just once I'd like to see a criminal mastermind scratch his chin and decide he'll use his new invention for something other than personal gain. There are honest geniuses out there in the Atlas Universe, aren't there?

While at an office costume party (dressed as a sorcerer), Bill Farrin is given the unpleasant news by his boss that he's been fired for not being glib enough. Before Bill can successfully argue his future with the company, the two men are approached by a strange elfish creature who mistakes Bill for his "master." The men are led down a stairway into a dungeon where wait a handful of robed men. Before long, Bill and his boss are told that this band of magicians are about to take control of the world and were just waiting for the Big Poobah (whom they mistake for Bill, obviously) to lead the way. Using his noodle, Bill talks the magicians into putting off the attack for another thousand years when the time will be right. Back at the party, Bill's boss is impressed and gives the man a promotion. Immensely silly stuff this "Menace from the Nether World!" but, as with the previous story, the art keeps you along for the full ride. 

On "The Night of October Third!" salesman Cal Nevin breaks down in a remote part of the country and hoofs it to a lone little house. Inside, the man of the house, a brilliant and really smart Atlas scientist, has been toiling away on a "matter duplicator," a gizmo that can replicate anything (well, anything small enough to fit into its teensy drawer). Dollar signs (literally) flashing before his eyes, Cal waits until the scientist hits the sheets and then starts cloning a ten-dollar bill. Unfortunately, the greedy man is interrupted by the scientist who is shocked at Cal's avarice and demands he stop. In the ensuing melee, a fire breaks out and the scientist's lab is destroyed. The old man ponders a lifetime of work up in smoke while Cal regrets that he didn't have a Ben Franklin on him. 

In the three-page "Man Lost," an explorer spends months traipsing through the African jungles, searching for a scientist who had gone missing years before. He stumbles upon the brilliant Dr. Hansel in a small village, only to discover the egghead has relinquished his throne as "Most Brilliantest Professor in the Atlas Universe" to devote his life to building doll houses! Disgusted, the explorer turns and heads back to the States before Hansel can explain that he's discovered a race of little people! 

Rod Phillips kisses his wife and kids goodbye then heads to the office, where he holds down a 9-to-5 at the Brilliant Atlas Scientist Company. Just another day. But then tragedy strikes when Rod enters the building and no one knows who he is. Like so many protagonists before him in virtually the same situation, Rod is perplexed. He heads back home where his wife tells him she doesn't recognize him and she's waiting for her husband to come home... after he's been gone for a year! What the Dickens? Rod realizes he's disappeared from human consciousness just like his old partner, Harry, and several other brilliant scientists who were working on a "time formula theory."

Suddenly, Harry himself approaches Rod on the street and begs him to follow him to a secret location. There, Rod meets up with all the members of the Disappeared Brilliant Atlas Scientist Club. Putting all their massive thinking caps together, the men of science deduce that something just isn't right, that some unknown force from outer space or another dimension is attempting to thwart their plans for a "time formula theory!" In the end, the unknown powers decide to allow the men to go back to their ordinary lives sans any memory of the theory. You think my half-assed synopsis is complicated, just try reading the word balloons on the final page of "No Place on Earth!" Still, for that thrill alone (certainly not for the cookie-cutter Giant art), I'd semi-sorta recommend this as a decent way to waste a couple minutes.

In the "Stinkin' Commie" Department this issue, we have "The Secret of the Black Tube," wherein said stereotypical Wessler Commies kidnap an American scientist, hoping to discover the secret of his new invention, a black tube that the enemy believes promotes mind reading. It's the typical "the other side is as stupid as we are smart" hogwash that permeated the Atlas titles in the 1950s (and before you jump on me, I'm not saying the "other side" was right; I'm just wondering if we were ever wrong) but I do have to admit the final reveal (the real secret of the tube) is pretty funny.-Peter

World of Fantasy #7

Cover by Bill Everett

"Wheels of Doom!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★

"Someone in the Flames" (a: Dick Ayers) ★

"The Girl Who Didn't Exist!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★1/2

"Run for Your Life" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"The Hidden Hex!" (a: Sam Kweskin) ★★

"The Man in Grey!" (a: Gray Morrow) ★★★

Rodney Ames and his brother Edwin are getting up in years and their business is in dire need of cash. Edwin complains about the young guys on motorcycles who make the streets a menace but Rodney thinks it looks like fun and buys one on time. When he zooms off, he looks 40 years younger! Rodney enters a race to win a $5000 prize while Edwin stays home and worries. During the race, Rodney runs another rider off the track to help a third rider win the prize. When he gets home, Rodney discovers that the winner was Edwin, who had also bought a bike and transformed into his younger self!

Manny Stallman's art again reminds me of Jack Kirby's work in spots. The plot in "Wheels of Doom!" is silly and I wish there were more of a focus on the bad young men zooming their cycles through town. 

On the run from the cops, Crane sees Ancient Mayans worshipping at a temple. He faints and, on waking, sees an Indian whom he thinks must be a figment of his imagination. He is taken to the plantation of Juan Lopez, who explains that the local Indians still worship Quetzalcoatl, believing that the god appears in the fires on the pyramid, robed in feathers. Crane cooks up a scheme and dresses like the god, planning to control the natives but surprised to see "Someone in the Flames." The Indians catch him and throw him in a cell, where he is visited by Quetzalcoatl himself! The Big Q turns out to be none other than Lopez, who reveals that he dresses as the god to control the Indians.

The first two stories in this issue are credited to Carl Wessler and Jack Oleck in the GCD and, sadly, Oleck's tale is even worse than Wessler's. So much for my faint hope that new blood might improve the writing at Atlas.

Nathan Finch buys a big seaside house on the New England coast for a low price and is unconcerned that it's said to be haunted by "The Girl Who Didn't Exist!" She's a pretty gal named Johanna and her ghost appears on the widow's walk one night when Nathan gets dressed up to resemble the whaler she'd loved. Romance blossoms and Nathan goes to the wharf one night to leave with her on a whaling ship. She reveals that she knew who he was all along and they agree to keep their torrid affair going at the house.

For once, the ghost is really a ghost and not a Martian or a projection or a trick by the cops! That has to be worth something, right? The art by Tony DiPreta isn't very impressive.

Ignoring his father Ivan's advice to "Run for Your Life," Jan Hublo is captured at an anti-Communist revolt in his Eastern European country. Ivan finds a book on sorcery and, the next morning, conjures a cloud that enters the prison where Jan is held but fails to set him free. Attempts with fire and invisibility the next day also fail, and the day after that, evil Col. Rokell orders Jan to be shot at dawn, only to find that the young man has vanished! When the colonel rushes out to find Jan he is mistaken for the prisoner, arrested, and executed by firing squad.

Reading an anti-Communist story by Carl Wessler that is illustrated by Robert Sale makes death by firing squad look good in comparison. There is really nothing positive to say about this one.

Wealthy Richard Knox buys a farm in Pennsylvania Dutch country and orders his workman to paint over all the hex signs because he thinks they're silly superstitions. Right away, the community is shaken by a big storm, a fire, and a tornado. The neighbors aren't happy but Knox won't back down. Eventually, everyone and everything calms down. Knox does not realize that his farm contains "The Hidden Hex!" that grew up in the middle of his crops when his workman planted them just so.

Sam Kweskin's art is not bad and I gave this one an extra half star for the early appearance of a crop circle in a comic book. Did Carl Wessler know that they would be a big thing in a few decades?

In the year 6956, a Troubleshooter escapes from the locked closet where he was held, bound and gagged. He reports to his superior officer that he was slugged by a Destroyer, who took his orders and time-travel clearance. The troubleshooters travel to the past to prevent dangerous discoveries from being made, while the Destroyers do the opposite. The troubleshooter rushes back to the 20th century but is too late to prevent the Destroyer from whispering in the ear of a man in a lab and telling him the final element that will lead to creation of an explosive that will destroy the world. Fortunately, the man in whose ear the secret was whispered is only a janitor, who has no idea what the Destroyer was talking about!

Grey Morrow's solid artwork elevates this story, which benefits from an intriguing concept and a conclusion that I did not see coming. Easily the best story this issue, "The Man in Gray!" saves World of Fantasy #7 from being consigned to the recycling bin.-Jack

Next Week...
Hey, At Least We've
Got the Art, Right?

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 162: Atlas/Marvel Post-Code Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 147

May 1957 Part II

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #57

Cover by Bill Everett and Carl Burgos (?)

"The Man in Black!" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★

"Smash-Up!" (a: Syd Shores) ★1/2

"The Man Who Stole the Sun!" (a: Marvin Stein) ★

"When Vernon Vanished" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"It Happens at Night!" (a: Fred Kida) ★

"Someone is Following" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★1/2

In an attempt to further his control over his people, Buloff the dictator declares a national holiday in his own name and proclaims that all his subjects must smile on this day of celebration. Though his flunkies warn him this might actually cause more consternation than celebration, Buloff stands firm.

While the festival is going on, "The Man in Black!" suddenly appears on the street, sporting one of the most frowniest frowns ever to grace a human face. When he learns of this act of disobedience, Buloff orders his guards to arrest the man but when they attempt a capture, the protestor disappears. We discover that the stranger was actually from another dimension where everything is the counterpart to Earth (his frown is a smile, etc.). The man in black is gone but the seeds of rebellion have been planted.

Yeah, that climax is pretty silly and a whole lot of preach but I gotta say this tale sure sounds familiar, as if ripped from the pages of today's headlines. We thought Atlas might score a bullseye on space flight and time travel someday but it turns out the prediction of a dangerous, egotistical dictator who loves to slap his name on everything he comes in contact with and sends secret police out to do his dirty work was the most on-the-money prophecy ever.

Two men crash their small plane in an uncharted territory of the Yucatan jungle and discover an ancient race of men who drink from a fountain of youth and really hate outsiders. After being captured, the two explorers escape and briefly debate heading back for some of that fabulous water but decide that it's a beverage no normal man should drink. "Smash-Up!" begins with an exciting adventure into the jungle and sorta sputters out right in the middle of a debate about ancient races and eternal youth. The Syd Shores art is so-so, with some panels showing a certain style and flair while others look like poor Syd fell asleep on his pencil and just sorta made lines on the paper.

Joe Hill is jackhammerin' a city street when he suddenly falls through the asphalt and discovers a hidden world underneath. Joe meets the people of the underground city and learns that they derive their heat from a giant diamond that sits in the middle of town square. In the great tradition of Atlas explorers before him, Joe decides that the gem can make him a rich man above ground so he makes plans to steal it. Like those pioneering thieves before him, it does not go well for our protagonist. I can see our (uncredited) writer sitting in the Atlas breakroom, spinning the "The Man Who..." wheel and landing on "...Stole the Sun" and then coming up empty for an original plot. I did laugh out loud when Joe broke through to this fabulous Verne-ian city after barely cracking the surface of the road. How did no one ever run across this paradise before?

Rod Mitchell is assigned to investigate the strange disappearance of Lloyd Vernon so he heads to Vernon's hometown to sniff out some clues. While he's there, he falls in love with Vernon's daughter and, alas, discovers the "vanish without a trace" gene is hereditary. "When Vernon Vanished" is one of Carl Wessler's worst scripts ever (and that's saying something); a silly romance tale without one iota of energy or wit. The Winiarski art matches the script's mediocrity to a T. Equally dreadful is the three-page "It Happens At Night," where a down-on-his-luck investor (down to his "last ten thousand!") receives what he perceives to be messages from the neon lights in a building across town. His wealth becomes massive but, in the inevitable downer of a climax, a patrolman informs the once again destitute former millionaire that the building in question was shut down years before. 

The graphic style of Richard Doxsee (reminiscent of George Evans) elevates the finale, "Someone is Following," from the usual Atlas Stinkin' Commie pap into a striking visual journey. "Red Scourge" Ah Ling comes to Hanchu to crack down on resistors to the Commie way. He orders his thugs to burn down a temple to show who's boss but then must deal with a superhuman shadow man who thwarts the evil military presence and restores peace to Hanchu. The twist is both expected and clever. Doxsee has come right out of left field and, in the three months since he made his debut with "Inside the Pharaoh's Tomb" in Journey Into Unknown Worlds #54, he has become one of my favorite Atlas artists.-Peter

Marvel Tales #158

Cover by Carl Burgos and Sol Brodsky (?)

"I Saw the Hidden People" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Secret of the Black Stone" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Man Who Moved!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★

"Nightmare's End!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"Lost... One World!" (a: Bernard Baily) ★

"They Think I'm Dead!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★★

The penultimate issue of the first incarnation of Marvel Tales begins with "I Saw the Hidden People." Evan Ralston moves to the country to get away from it all and start a farm but discovers his crops aren't growing as fast as he'd like. So Evan goes out and buys a crop-dusting plane and gets to work with the fungicide; usually chemicals can produce a few nasty side effects but Evan gets a whale of a result. When he finishes dusting, a town materializes where his motley crops stood.

He meets a few people on the town's main street and one, a gorgeous babe named Dolores, explains that the town is called Oronaldo and that it disappeared one hundred years ago during the gold rush. Yep, this here town is awash with gold! As Evan explains, you can't keep a town that suddenly appears out of nothing a secret for long. Especially if that town is carved in gold. "I Saw the Hidden People" is not that bad of a tale (penned by Our Man Wessler) but the art is a seesaw of decent and awful. Forte can pencil a really nice dame but some of his characters suffer from odd anatomy (see that splash for proof--both men look as though they've become victims of a head shrinker).

In "Secret of the Black Stone," a sculptor discovers a strange black rock that he takes home to make statues out of. He accidentally discovers that the rock can give him power to make other men do his bidding. His grand vision of robbing candy stores is dashed by a really smart cop who immediately figures out what's going on and shuts down the mad sculptor. The script is just as bad as most of the drivel pumped out by Carl Wessler but we should be able to count on a decent bit of work by Paul Reinman. Not here, where the artist seems rushed and uninterested. But then I was uninterested, too, so I don't blame the guy.

Spin that wheel!!! "The Man Who..." lands on "Moved!" this time. If you think that's anti-climactic, read on. Winston J. Cobb is an entrepreneur, a man who's mastered the business of transporting people, and the man in front of him is wasting his time. Mr. Groves is trying to sell Winston J. on a new form of transportation: teleportation. Cobb asks for a demonstration but when Groves waves his hands and says "Voila!," the big man is still in his office. He tells Groves to leave and the man promptly does, in thin air as a matter of fact. Then Winston walks out his office door and realizes he's on a deserted Pacific island. At least this one is only three pages long.

Joe Lester's been having a really bad dream every night. He's the passenger in a car driving through the city when a figure darts out in front of the car and, just before the driver runs the shadow down, Joe whips out his medal he received for placing 13th in a first grade geography test. Danged if that medal doesn't stop the driver from killing that pedestrian every time. But the nightmares are taking their toll on Joe's health and his girl, Fran, is worried sick about her guy. Thank goodness they've both got a swell friend in Harry, who comes over to make sure the couple are coping. If only Joe and Fran could see into Harry's dark heart. He's got his eyes set on making Fran his squeeze and no bedridden pansy will get in his way. 

Harry steals Joe's medal to further erode his friend's mental state, but the joke's on Harry. He's the guy in the dream and without that special medal to stop the car's driver from pulling a hit-and-run, Harry becomes roadkill! By this time, effective twists were long gone and "Nightmare's End!" doesn't stray from the formula one iota. 

Floyd Nolan is just as stupid as every other Atlas thief; he steals thirty grand and tries to hide it in the basement of the boarding house where he lives and accidentally receives a whopper of an electric shock. He awakens to discover one month has gone by and he quickly devises a way to hide the moolah and escape police suspicion at the same time: shock himself 150 years into the future. I could have told this nitwit that something would go wrong. "Lost... One World!" (obviously "The Man Who Could Use Electricity to Transport Into the Future!" was already being used) makes little to no sense (how does Floyd know the shock won't kill him this time, let alone propel him farther into the future?) and is adorned by what look like grade school doodlings.

In the finale, "They Think I'm Dead!," a circus midget (hey, it's the uncredited writer's word, not mine, so take it up with him!) named Captain Small (!) stumbles onto a formula that can transform him into a normal-sized man. When he gains those extra feet of tallness, he wants no one to know who he was in his previous incarnation, so he fakes his own death. Ironically, he's arrested for murdering his former mini-self! After serving his time in jail, he's released and finds he can't get a job. Ironically, he wishes he was a midget again (oof, there's that awful un-PC word again, sorry!) and hits the road as a silent hobo. I'm not going to go out on a limb and proclaim that "They Think I'm Dead!" is a great comic book story, but it beats the hell out of its competition this issue and the ironies are effective. Otherwise, you can throw Marvel Tales #158 into the slab without so much as cracking the spine.-Peter

Mystery Tales #53

Cover by Bill Everett & Carl Burgos

"The People Who Couldn't Move" (a: Dick Giordano) ★1/2

"That's What You Think!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★

"I Died Too Soon" (a: Marvin Stein) ★1/2

"The Hired Hand" (a: Manny Stallman) ★

"He Lived Again" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"What Happened in Room 14?" (a: John Forte) ★★

Jack Tyler may be down to his last dollar, but when he arrives in Wardsburg he promises himself that he'll leave as a rich man. At City Hall, he hits on pretty, blonde secretary Marsha Bentley and quickly secures a job from Mayor Hoskins, who will pay $40/week for Jack to wind the clock in the tower every day at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. That evening, Jack and Marsha admit they're already madly in love with each other before Jack goes to wind the clock.

After his task is done he tells Marsha he plans to rob the local bank and she reluctantly agrees to skip town with him. Days later, Jack notices the townsfolk rushing inside at the first hint of rain. Two nights later, he enters the bank to rob it, only to find local citizens, "The People Who Couldn't Move," standing around and not moving. The mayor yells at Jack for forgetting to wind the clock and, as soon as the winding is done, the townsfolk start moving again, rushing in out of the rain. Hoskins tells Jack that they're all robots he built 30 years before to do all the hard work for mankind. Jack drives off alone, figuring that Marsha is a robot, unaware that she is not and has also left town, assuming for some reason that Jack is a robot.

And so begins another Atlas issue with a lousy, mixed-up story by Carl Wessler that features some of the worst Dick Giordano art I've ever seen. Why isn't Marsha a robot? Don't ask me. She must have been awfully desperate to fall for a jerk like Jack in a matter of hours.

Jessup is disappointed when his rich uncle dies and only leaves him a pair of eyeglasses, but when he puts them on and realizes he can see the immediate future, he does what every other Atlas protagonist does and tries to come up with a way to cash in. Instead of heading for the racetrack or the casino like anyone with sense, Jessup goes to the bank and waits till he sees the guard go on a coffee break. He then forces the bank manager to put all the cash in the bag. Before he can leave, the guard returns and foils his plans, explaining that he noticed how Jessup's eyes looked scared but vicious when he put on the glasses. "Anyone could see he was about to do something bad evil."

Frank Bolle's art on "That's What You Think!" is even worse than Dick Giordano's was in the first story. Jessup is such a dolt that he deserves what he gets. It astounds me how many people in the 1950s thought of little else than how to rob a bank.

Frank Neely escapes from prison before his scheduled execution and heads for town, looking for Sheriff Joe Jessup. On the sidewalk, people walk by as if he's not there, and in Mike's Diner, everyone seems not to see or hear Frank. He hears a radio report that he was executed and exits, passing Sheriff Jessup, who seems not to see him. Frank runs out of town, certain he's dead. Sheriff Jessup and men with guns turn up and arrest him. The sheriff tells Frank that when he heard of the escape, he told everyone in town to put on an act, figuring that it would keep innocent bystanders safe.

"I Died Too Soon" continues this issue's string of losers. It seems like Atlas comics are at their last gasp. The story is poor and the art is nearly as bad.

Suddenly appearing on Earth as a scout for an invasion, an alien disguises himself in a three-piece suit and tie and shows up at a farmhouse, where an elderly couple take him on as "The Hired Hand" to do chores. He says a few magic words and splits wood, but the couple are not surprised. He chants an incantation and plows a field, but he still doesn't get a rise out of the old folks. He teleports instantly back to his home planet and reports, causing the general to abandon the invasion plans because the Earthlings must have secret powers stronger than those of the invaders. Back on Earth, the elderly couple (wait for it) wonder where the hired hand got to, lamenting their poor vision.

If you didn't see that one coming, you must be as blind as these old folks. Hand in your Bad Comic Fan card and go back to Comic School! Marvin Stein's art is on par with everything else in this issue.

Ben Thompson is hiking through the frozen north when a crevice opens up and he falls. He begs for his life, promising to reform, and is saved when a soft ledge breaks his fall. Ben recalls refusing to help an old prospector named Larson two days ago, when Larson offered to cut Ben in on his big uranium discovery for a bit of grub and Ben grabbed his map and sent him away hungry. Ben is saved by some hikers and immediately forgets his promise to reform. On his own again, Ben locates the place to dig for uranium and suddenly hears Larson warning him of another crevice about to open up. Ben thinks Larson is a ghost and runs off, falling off another cliff to his death and leaving Larson, who is perfectly fine and had been rescued by others, to ponder why Ben didn't take advantage of his second chance.

Empty moralizing, bad plotting, and shabby art are to be found in the pages of "He Lived Again." Is Atlas on fumes and using file stories that weren't worth publishing the first time around?

Columnist Ned Barker writes the Inside Broadway column for the newspaper and relishes in skewering talent and ruining careers. He sees the act of a magician named Presto the Great and the review that follows causes the performer's engagement to be canceled. One day, Ned sees Presto on the street and follows him to a shabby hotel, where he stays in room 14. Ned sneaks in and sees Presto practicing before a mirror and not doing badly at all. Suddenly, Ned is tossed into another dimension where Presto is a great magician staying in a fancy hotel room. Ned wants to promote Presto, but the columnist's appearance makes Presto lose his mojo. He can't send Ned back to his home dimension, so Ned is forced to wander the streets, jobless.

By default, "What Happened in Room 14?" is the best story in this poor issue of Mystery Tales, even though it's not very good. John Forte's people can tend to look wooden, as they do here, and I have to say that Ned Barker reminded me of myself and the way I've criticized this issue. At least I'm still in my home dimension. I think.-Jack

Next Week...
More Williamson/Mayo Magic!